


The Gang Gets A Dragon

by Jumbledbyrd



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (but it isnt really sad), Animal Death, Found Family, Gen, Jester gets a baby dragon, canon up to episode 62, then vague other stuff happens but its not really addressed on screen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-02-29 11:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18777424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jumbledbyrd/pseuds/Jumbledbyrd
Summary: Jester gets a baby white dragon- shenanigans ensue.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So! This is my first published Critrole fic, and I'm not super proud of it, but I did want to share it anyway :D I might end up writing/publishing more for it, I might not, and this is pretty short all things considered, but anywayyyy. (Also warning for not being beta'd)

So they’re fighting a dragon when shit starts going downhill. Turns out, getting slapped on the back by a fully grown white dragon, _hurts_ , as Beau can now attest to. But no, that isn’t the part where shit starts to really fall apart.

Killing the dragon isn’t _easy_ , usually that part is whatever comes after the battle, but not this time. They’d known that the large stone cavern was the dragons den, that much was obvious, and if nothing else, the piles of treasure made it pretty obvious. The freezing cold air was also a pretty dead giveaway.

The dragon collapses to the ground, and there are several distinct _crack_ -ing noises, followed by something wet hitting the ground. Jester rushes over to investigate before anyone can stop her, still with chunks of ice in her hair from the dragons breath, and they all hear the loud gasp and “Oh!”.

“What’s over there?” Beau yells from the other side of the corpse. She looks around for a second, and decides it’ll be quicker to climb over the dragon than it will be to go around. So she does. Some of the blood, she notes, is already being frozen in the cool of the room. She’s pretty sure she’ll be able to flick off some of her own frozen sweat in a minute or two.

“Eggs!” Jester yells, her voicing breaking at the high pitch. Beau steps up next to her, and sure enough, there they are.

“Eggs?” Caleb chimes in, one eyebrow raised. He walks around the corner, and stops.

Five eggs, three of them completely crushed, one of them with a massive split down the side and milky pink liquid running out, and one with only a small crack along the top. Pale grey and splotchy like the larger moon in the night sky, they’re easily the size of a really, really big watermelon.

“Can I keep it? Pleeeeeeease.” Jester turns to look at Beau, blue eyes wide.

“I don’t even know how you’ve kept Sprinkle alive this long.” Beau deadpans, and has to fight back a smirk when the weasel comes crawling out of Jester’s hood at the mention of his name.

“ _Ja_ , besides Jester, it might not ever hatch because of the crack.” Caleb says, pulling his coat closer around himself.

“Well _technically_ , I’ve kept two pets alive for this long, which is still longer than both of _youuuu_ ” she smiles sweetly as Yasha and Caduceus round the corner. Beau glares at her for a second. Excuse her, Professor Thaddeus is still alive, somewhere.

“What is going on?” Yasha asks, wrapping her mantle more closely around her now that the adrenaline from battle is wearing off.

“Jester found a new _pet_ to bring home.” Beau starts, turning away from the puppy-dog eyes that Jester is trying to pull.

“Beau if we leave it here it’ll _die._ ”

“It’ll probably die anyway Jester. That’s what happens when an egg gets a crack in it.” Beau argued, because come on, even if it did somehow survive, there was no way they’d be able to take care of a baby dragon.

“Huh.” Caduceus muttered, and then all eyes were on him. “It’s hatching.”

“ _Fuuuuuck_ ” Beau sighed heavily, but turned to watch as more and more cracks started appearing on the egg. It was fascinating, in a strange way. It wasn’t like Beau had ever seen well, anything, being born before, and she could feel the tension in the room.

Fjord and Nott make their way around, Nott having several dragon teeth in her hands, which were surprisingly clear of blood.

“We have to keep it now.” Jester proclaims, just as the baby dragon (fuck, what is a baby dragon even called? A dragonling? A big lizard?) tumbles onto the stone of the caverns floor.

It’s about the same size as a hound, white scales still slick with- something? Beau didn’t really know much about baby anything, nor does she really want to. Big blue eyes were looking around, and she almost has to admit that it’s cute, _almost_.

The stupid little thing chirps, and Jester doesn’t even hesitate to pick it up off the ground, pulling it into her arms and holding it close. Her new coat is immediately covered in blood and whatever the rest of the fluid is. “It’s really cold you guys. Do you think it’s meant to be this cold?”

“Jest-” Fjord gets halfway through her name before sighing, and running a hand down his face. “Jester, listen. You’ve already got Sprinkle and Nugget, and a dragon is _slightly more conspicuous_ than either of those, don’t you think?”

“Caduceus, can you ask if it’s a boy dragon or a girl dragon?”

“Are you a boy or a girl dragon?” Caduceus says, and tilts his head at the chirp he gets in response, “I don’t think it understands the question.”

“That’s okay!” Jester hoists the dragon up onto her hip, it’s head resting on one shoulder, and Sprinkle scampers off her shoulder with a squeak, climbing up Yasha’s leg and into her mantle. The weasel is shaking slightly, and honestly, Beau is kind of shocked the thing hasn’t died of fright yet, or the approximately twelve hundred other dangerous situations it’s been in.

Beau looks to Nott. “We’re keeping it aren’t we?” she says, defeated.

Nott just shrugs, “Want a tooth?”

“Sure, why not.” Beau turns it around, inspecting it in the mid-afternoon light, and damn, it’s basically the size of her forearm, _that’s_ how big this baby dragon would get some day. She’ll find a use for it eventually. Maybe get it sharpened up into a blade or something.

“I’m your mama now,” Beau hears Jester whispering into where the baby dragon should probably have an ear. “Oh my gosh! I have to tell mama that now _I’m_ a mom!”

“Jester please don’t _Send_ that to your mom.” Fjord nudges at one of the other eggs with his foot, then grimaces at the slime.

Beau looks around the cavern, and everyone (with the notable exception of Jester) just looks tired. The aftermath of a long fight was near-always the same.

“Caleb? You good to bring up the tiny hut?” She asks, walking up and putting one elbow up onto his shoulder. She was just barely tall enough to reach without it being awkward. Not that physical contact with Caleb would ever not be awkward.

“ _Ja_ , give me ten minutes.”

“Just so you know Jester, you’re sleeping on the outside edge tonight. I’m not planning on losing an ear because your new kid gets hungry in the night.” Beau crosses her arms, and looks away when Jester grins widely and starts walking towards her.

“Come on Beau, you know you love him!” Without a word of warning, Jester dumped the baby dragon into her arms, and Beau scrambled to get a better hold.

Okay, maybe she could admit that it was kind of cute. In the same way that a raccoon looks cute right before it rips your face off.


	2. Chapter 2

Getting the little beast back into the city is a whole new obstacle.

With the moorbounders, it probably wouldn’t have been a problem, but no, they’d been left in Xhorhass because showing up on the other side of the border with them would be uh, kinda suspicious.

So they have horses instead.

Horses who aren’t at all agreeable to the idea of a dragon coming anywhere near them. Jester approaches, dragon in her arms, still chattering on about, well, honestly, Beau tuned out about twenty minutes ago. But she gets within ten feet of the horses and they dance away from her, snorting and ears pulled back.

Jester sighs dramatically. Pointed ears pulling back in frustration.

“C’mon, they’re too little to try and eat you,” she says, dragging out the last word. She kicks at the dead grass, and Beau is a little struck by how young Jester looks in that moment. It’s easy to forget how long Jester spent with just herself, her mum and the traveller.  

While Jester is sulking, Caduceus goes over and talks to the animals, and after a good fifteen minutes, they seem reluctant, but convinced that they aren’t in any grave danger.

The route is fairly unused, beginning to be overgrown with tall grass and plants, and Caleb says it’ll take close to two weeks travel to get to Nugvorot, given that they were going to avoid Rexxentrum like Caleb did a shower. There were going to be towns on the way, obviously, but the less of a trail they leave, the better (not that they’re great at that, Beau thinks to herself).

“So Jester, what are you going to name it?” Yasha speaks up, about half an hour into the ride. Beau notes that Sprinkle is still hiding himself in her mantle, and if weasels could glare, he’d definitely be glaring at the dragon.

Said dragon is currently scrambling to try and sit on Jester’s shoulders, like Frumpkin when he’s being a scarf. The small scratches littering Jester’s shoulders show just how well that’s working out.

“Cinnamon!” Jester announces, a smile lighting up her face.

 “That checks out.” Beau rides up next to Jester. “You want a, uh, hand there?” She holds out her arm. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s okay! They’re just a baby, so it doesn’t hurt that bad.”

“It will hurt a lot more when they are an adult Jester,” Yasha says, brow furrowed.

“That’s a problem for future me.” With that, Cinnamon chirps loudly, pressing themselves close to Jester, and the tiefling giggles.

Beau looks to Yasha, who only shrugs.

Apart from the bleeding shoulders, the first day’s ride is mostly uneventful. Caleb and Nott take point, and Yasha follows the group from behind. The terrain is mostly just tall grass, pretty much the only thing that can survive when winter comes, but they manage to find a tall mostly leafless tree, and tromp down the grass (Beau catches Caduceus murmuring an apology and has to suppress a small smile) until there’s enough room for all of them.

Beau offers to take first watch, and her and Caleb stand back to back at the edge of their newly formed clearing, looking out across the expanse of green-brown grass.

She watches over the rest of the mighty nein, looking at the way they’ve curled together, and her heart aches gently. They’ve been travelling together almost a year, and so so much has happened, but it’s the moments like this that she can stop and really feel how different things used to be.

“Hey Caleb?” she says, leaning her head back against the top of his shoulders.

“Yes, Beauregard?”

“Do you ever think about things?” she fumbles on the words.

“I think about many things Beauregard.” Beau snorts.

“About how things could have been different, I mean.” She looks up at the stars, so far from the place she grew up, and yet they look the same. The same two moons, the same constellations she learned as a kid, but they just killed a _dragon_ , and now they’re taking care of its _baby_ , how many people can say that?

“I, _ja_ , I spend a lot of time thinking about that.” Caleb finally responds, and it sounds like an admission of guilt.

Beau stands there, thinks for a second, words on the tip of her tongue, but her brain won’t cooperate. “I don’t think I’d change anything though, for what its worth, if it meant I wouldn’t get to meet you all.”

Caleb doesn’t respond.

Eventually, Beau kicks Fjord out of his spot, and curls up under a blanket that she hadn’t realised Jester was hiding in the haversack. Caduceus is at her other side, and he always radiates warmth (which is why he always ends up in the middle of these piles, everyone seeking him out like moths to a curtain) but tonight, the blanket is warm enough.

She wakes up the next morning, shivering, Jester’s cold hands holding on to her shoulder and arm, and an even colder mass in between them. She suddenly regrets not seeking the firbolg heater.

“Bastard.” Beau murmurs, still bleary-eyed, at the dragon. They open their eyes slowly, and chirp at Beau. “No. Ask Jester for food.”

“I’ve got breakfast.” Caduceus says from overhead, and Beau groans. If she has to eat magic tofu squares again, she might resort to eating the grass. She hauls herself up off the pressed down plants, pulls several pieces of them out of her hair.

“Changed my mind, I’m teaching Cinnamon how to hunt rabbits. Let’s go.” She nudges them with her knee, and they turn to look at Jester, tug on her sleeve with their teeth, before seeming to give up and following Beau. She’s didn’t hunt much as a kid, and definitely not with throwing stars, but oh well, it can’t be that difficult.

They walk about a quarter mile, out of hearing range, before Beau starts to see hares in the tall grass. They’re hard to spot, and harder to track, but she eventually finds a spot that must be a trail used pretty consistently, because the hares cautiously walk along the edges of it. Beau stands stock still, and the birds and other small animals that somehow survive here make enough noise to cover the sound of her breathing.

Very quickly, Beau discovers that baby dragons have no concept of “stealth” and are in fact, a lot like a baby bird demanding to be fed. Every time one of the flecked-brown hares is just in the right place for Beau to fling a throwing star, Cinnamon makes an excited noise, or tries to jump over the tall grass to see what’s going on.

It happens for a third time, and Beau huffs as the hare darts off out of sight, and Cinnamon pursues for a few steps, growling, before coming back and dramatically sighing at her feet. Oh yeah, Beau thinks, this one will fit right in.

“You’re useless, you know that?” Beau bends down, pushing them gently off their feet, and Cinnamon just looks at her confused, before gently biting Beau’s hand. “That’s not food either.”

Without a quarry, Beau scoops Cinnamon up off the ground, off-balance for a second because _holy shit_ they’re a dense little thing, and drags them back to the camp, resigned to tofu squares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, posting the first chapter: oh I wrote this basically all in one afternoon, it won't take me that long to write another chapter!  
> Me, almost a full month later: ....  
> Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed, and I wanted to put it out there that if y'all have ideas/suggestions, throw them my way, and I'll definitely take a look!


	3. Chapter 3

The next few days proceed much the same, at least until they hit a town. It’s a small farming community, which is why by the time they’ve walked from the edge of town to the only inn they can find, word’s already got round that they have an unusual companion.

Beau glares daggers at the dark-haired human man that stares are them, and when the halfling behind the bar raises an eyebrow at Cinnamon, Beau deadpans “That’s my dog.” The woman brushes braids back over her shoulders, and with a look at that basically says ‘I don’t get paid enough for this’, gives them three keys to rooms upstairs, and directions to a small bathhouse.

Beau flops onto one of the beds upstairs, and it's pretty uncomfortable if she's being honest, but they're only staying for a night, so it doesn't make that much difference. She vaguely overhears Fjord, Jester, and Caleb decide to go looking for supplies.  “Get real food!” Beau shouts as they walk back downstairs.

Beau takes a nap, and in the meanwhile, Jester takes very good care to send the sweetest smiles at the people who give her (and more likely, Cinnamon) weird looks. It probably helps that Caleb has a resting grumpy face behind her, but nobody bothers them! So it’s perfectly fine!

Cinnamon seems happy to be walking instead of riding, and they remind Jester of a puppy, the way they smell at the dirt road, and chirp back at Jester, like they’re asking her a question. Their white scales reflect the light, and it kind of reminds Jester of a disco ball.

“Hey Caleb?” She asks, pushing her way between him and Fjord.

“Careful Jester.” Fjord mutters as he steps over.

“Do you think that we could teach Cinnamon Common?”

“It is possible. I’ve heard stories of dragons who speak Common, but they are usually quite old Jester, it may take some time.” Caleb fusses with the cuff of his coat as they walk. “We are here.”

The store is fairly small and quaint looking from the outside, and it has a sign next to the door that says Histe Family Goods. Hmmm, Jester might come back to that later, she's sure she can make something funny out of it.

“Okay!” Jester continues to ramble as they walk in. “Fjord! What should we try and teach them to say! Ooh, do you think they’ll mimic like Kiri? Or have a voice?” She keeps an eye on Cinnamon as they scramble around the entrance to the shop, seeming interested by all the new smells.

“How does that even work?” Fjord says under his breath, and he meets Jester’s eyes before continuing louder, “Like, dragon mouths and human-tiefling-whatever mouths are different right?” He picks up a metal cup from a shelf, looks it over, and puts it back down.

“It’s probably a magic thing.” Jester shrugs.

Caleb is over talking to the clerk, and Jester locks eyes with Fjord again, and she whispers “Cover for me!” while grabbing the cup that Fjord had just put down, and her (non-magical) paints, and as quick as possible without smudging it, leaving a symbol of Captain Tusktooth on one side, and The Traveller on the other.

“I think it’s worth more now!” she grins at Fjord, who just looks flustered. He runs a hand through his hair, and when he sighs, Jester can see where the tips of his tusks are starting to grow back through.

“Come on you two.” Caleb says, with the same tone that people use when they're talking to small children, “Beau should be satisfied by this ‘real food’.” He herds Jester out the door, and she looks back over her shoulder, whistling for Cinnamon to follow. Maybe that’s what she should spend tonight doing! She’s tried teaching Cinnamon a little bit, but travelling is always tiring, even if they aren’t fighting, and maybe she’s been just a little bit lazy about it, but she can’t help it if she’s so tired.

They walk back into the inn to find Nott trying to teach Caduceus and Yasha a card game. It doesn’t look like it’s going very well. Nott’s yelling, and Jester is pretty sure she catches Caduceus throwing a smirk at Yasha.

Beau comes downstairs, still rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and Jester beams at her. Then throws one of the packets of jerky they just bought, which Beau catches fractions of an inch before it hits her in the face. It takes her another moment before she even realises what it is, and her face lights up. “Fuck yeah!”

“Well y’all,” Fjord starts, and sends Jester a look when she giggles and says ‘y’all’ under her breath “Where to next?”

Caleb and Beau start to talk about their ideas, and Jester kinda, zones out a little bit? She tries to listen, she really does! But its just so boring, and she’s pretty sure they’ve had this conversation like, a billion times before, so she takes a couple of pieces of the jerky out of Beau's bag and gets Cinnamon to follow her outside.

Once out there, she sits them down, and waits for them to get distracted by something before she walks fifteen-ish feet away. She whistles, and Cinnamon looks up for a second, then goes back to what is that? A piece of food on the ground? Gross.

For the next hour or so, Jester tries to get Cinnamon used to her whistling, and it’s not perfect, but for a first practice, Jester thinks they haven’t done too bad. Maybe better than it had with Nugget’s blinking anyway. Nugget's kind of become a stay-at-home dog while they go out on adventures, which means right now he's hanging out with Essik. Jester still isn't quite sure how she managed to talk him into it, but if it means that Nugget is looked after, then she has no problems with it!

Jester goes to push the door open, and finds Beau just on the other side. “Oh, Jester, hey. We were just coming to look for you.” Sure enough, the mighty nein is gathered behind Beau. “We’re going to find the bathhouse.”

“That is probably a good idea. We’re all starting to smell, just a bit.” Jester says smiling, and she moves out of the doorway. She falls into step behind Caduceus and looks up at him.

“Hey Caduceus?” He tilts his head, pink hair falling over half his face in the process. “I was talking to Fjord and Caleb about it earlier, do you think we can teach Cinnamon to speak common?”

“Probably. Dragons are supposedly intelligent.” He shrugs.

“Doooooo you think you could help translate? Because you know, you can speak to other animals and plants and stuff, even if they can’t say anything back and I think it would really help you know?” She watches Cinnamon as they walk, the baby getting distracted by something every few steps, before catching up with the rest of the group.

“I can certainly try.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a short chapter this time, but I did make it about a month between updates again! I do really want to make updates shorter between these, but a lot of the ideas I have are pretty far in the future compared to this, and I don't really want to do things out of chronological order. :/  
> Anyway! Hope y'all enjoyed, if you have any suggestions/prompts leave them in the comments :D

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed! I guess let me know if you liked it or would want to read more from this? ^_^


End file.
